


Collapsed In Love

by thimbleful



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, End of the World, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Post Season 8, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25202026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleful/pseuds/thimbleful
Summary: “Jon Snow. Will you be my husband? For the rest of our very short lives.”On a still winter night, some years after wars and strife have ended, a lonely woman in gray arrives outside the quiet cabin of a man with one foot in society and the other in the wild. She comes bearing a quarter cask of wine and the worst news he’s ever heard. And so they share one last night together, talking about dreams and regrets (and maybe doing something about some of them).It's the end of the world and, thanks to Bran, they know it.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 112
Kudos: 311





	Collapsed In Love

**Author's Note:**

> This story came to me months and months ago. I thought it would only ever be one of those scenarios I'd use to make myself sad, as I am wont to do. However, a couple of days ago, this story was desperate to get out on paper, so to speak, and here we are. It has light moments. It has fluff. It has banter and flirting and kissing and all that jazz. But that doesn’t mean this is a lighthearted story. If you're not into making yourself feel sad over fictional people for fun, then this is probably not a good read.
> 
> Note: I know absolutely fuck all about science and I don't aim to learn just to write an angsty one shot. Also, this is a made up world so, frankly, anything goes. Just go with it please and thank. As always, Jon never loved his aunt and Sansa already knows it. So it’s not something they need to solve or anything like that.

As the snow melted away in the South, some believed the seasons would return to an ancient order only described in dusty old tomes. But the snow never left the North and, after only a few moons of false spring, it blew down south too. Since then winter has reigned along with the Starks and will do so until the end. The trees she passes stretch their naked black fingers toward the sky in a prayer that will go unanswered. They’ll never bloom again. 

Castle Black lies quiet and dark. No lights shine in the courtyard or mark the gates leading in nor the gates leading out. The Night’s Watch disbanded shortly after having been reformed; it’s mostly been deserted since. Northerners say the ghosts of brothers in black haunt the place; the Free Folk say it’s Mance Rayder. That, on bitter nights (and most of them are), one can still hear his screams as he burns.

People only ever come there for executions now.

The world is dark, will be for many hours still, but the blanket of snow reflects the light of countless stars and a waxing moon. There are wolves out here, she knows. Wolves and snow bears and shadowcats and other beasts who’ve started thriving in the years after the Night King tried killing all living things. (She almost laughs at that.) She’s not scared, though. Perhaps she should be, but there’s no point in it anymore.

His cabin lies an hour’s ride into the far North, a stone’s throw from Whitetree. It used to be a village once. But after the war was won and the Free Folk returned to their lands, most of the clans left went back to Hardhome to live as one off the fish and seal and whale the water gives. A few scattered over the true North. The handful former brothers of the Watch too. He alone stayed here. A link between the Free Folk and the North, living at the border of two kingdoms, the path to his cabin trampled by many feet and hooves and paws. It’s easy to follow even in the dark.

Something is stalking her, she thinks. A wolf tracking its prey, perhaps. Waiting in vain for her horse to grow tired and make her vulnerable, but she got herself a fresh horse in Mole’s Town. Princess now stands in a warm stable and munches on hay; the one that carries her is strong and sturdy. So much so he easily increases the speed at her command and trots down the path, through the dark wood.

It’s haunted too, they say. The Haunted Forest. She’s forgotten why. It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore. Only the message she’s come to deliver.

She sees the lights now, a faint red-gold glimmer streaming through the cracks of his shutters. Then she hears the cawing of the ravens he brought with him when he left Castle Black, the rookery annexed to the cabin.

She draws a tired breath, clouds of white blooming from her lips, and rides on.

* * *

He gets his ale from Mole’s Town. There’s a woman there who brews ale surprisingly tasty for the price. She’s sweet on him too and always throws in some pies or bread or pudding or cakes. To fatten him up, she says, pinching his cheeks. He’s too skinny, she says, and needs to get himself a woman soon or at the very least visit the brothel for a good time before he grows moss down there. He only ever smiles at that and thanks her and rides home with his small cart filled with enough provisions to last him for a month.

He never even throws a longing glance at the door leading to the underground brothel. Aye, sometimes his bed feels too big and cold and quiet. Sometimes he wonders what it would be like with a woman here in his cabin, in his bed, in his arms. But he’s made his choice.

He pours himself a tankard now and settles down by the rough-hewn table by the hearth. It’s full of papers. Complaints, mostly. From northern Houses, mostly. A young lady got stolen two weeks ago and off he went to get her home. He found her, easily, and learned she’d quite happily followed the wildling to live in Hardhome. Being a spearwife suited her better than embroidery and painting or whatever else ladies do. Penning that raven isn’t easy, but at least that’s better than last time when the girl didn’t go willingly at all. She was alive, thankfully. A bit worse for wear, aye, but alive. The wildling he threw into one of the cells at Castle Black until the girl’s father could arrive for the execution.

It was the tenth wildling he’s hanged for stealing a northern lady. He’ll hang many more before death reclaims him, he gathers.

Inspired by Maester Luwin’s careful records, he notes it all down in a fat ledger. Licking the ale foam off his mustache, he dips the quill in ink and starts writing in a hand that’s grown rather neat over the years, over countless pages. His favorite raven, one he never sends out, sits on his shoulder while he writes as if she can read the words and maybe she can. They’re clever, ravens, and this one talks as well as Mormont’s old bird.

He’s halfway done when Ghost lifts his head, ears cocked. The wolf even leaves his favorite spot by the fire and pads over to the door. Old Nan leaves his shoulder for her branch. The cabin has no window glass, only shutters he gingerly pushes open a crack.

A woman in gray dismounts a horse, her hooded cloak strewn with snowflakes. With great effort, she detaches a quarter cask strapped to the saddle. Once it sits in the snow, she stands for a moment at his small stable with the reins in her hands and her head bowed. Winter paints her breaths white. It can’t be her. She’s alone. She’s never alone. She never visits unannounced. She rarely visits at all--and certainly not this late in the evening when they’re only an hour shy of midnight. But when she shakes her head to herself, secures the horse to a pole, and walks toward the door with determined steps, all tall and regal, he knows. 

As if snow has sneaked its way under his collar to melt, a chill trickles down his spine.

He opens the door before she knocks.

“Jon.”

“Sansa.” He gives a small smile to hide how his nerves are working his heart into a frenzy. “What brings you here at this hour?”

She draws in a breath to speak--and then she bursts into tears.

He’s seen her cry before in that delicate way of hers where a few tears trickle down her cheeks she wipes discreetly, as if she’s too much of a lady even when distraught to make a spectacle of herself. But there’s nothing delicate about this. Nothing discreet. Sobs rack her body and he doesn’t know what to do, hasn’t touched her even once since he left King’s Landing and they shared a hug on a windy pier. Their every interaction since then has been about work and they’ve been separated by desks and tables and flagstones only ever crossed in heated discussions where he’s always the one backing down in the end before something gives.

Now his hands hover uselessly around her until he throws hesitation aside and pulls her into his embrace. The moment his arms close around her, she melts into him, leans her whole weight against him so suddenly he staggers before finding his bearings and holding her closer still. She smells of winter, of snow, of horse, of lavender and roses. (He’s not smelled anything as lovely in years.)

When she finally pulls away, the shoulder of his shirt is damp and warm with her tears. But it soon becomes cold from the winter air streaming in through the still open door. He pops outside, hauls the quarter cask inside, and closes the door. Throws more logs on the fire. Helps her out of her cloak. Invites her to sit at the table he hurriedly clears of papers he then shoves into the nightstand drawer.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, dabbing her cheeks. “You should sit too.”

A breath rushes out of him; he grabs the tabletop. “Is it Arya?”

Sansa’s lashes flutter. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. The eyes that flicker up to meet his are blue and wet and defeated. “No,” she says and pulls a scroll from the pocket of her dress. “It’s all of us.”

* * *

She watches him read the scroll over and over. She did the same when she received it, knows the words by heart. 

“Is it true?” he says, the scroll trembling in his hand like the last leaf on an autumn branch.

“How should I know.” Her quick laughter borders on hysteria. She stifles it. “Bran says…” She breathes in deeply. “I brought wine.”

Nodding, Jon gets to his feet and searches the cupboard standing by the hearth.

She’s only been inside his cabin a handful times; last time was over a year ago. It looks mostly the same. A bed standing opposite the hearth. A nightstand next to it with a pile of books. A chest standing at the foot end where he keeps his clothes. A table with four log stools. A cupboard. Longclaw mounted on the wall facing the door. A gnarly branch nailed to the wall where Old Nan likes to perch. A rickety shelf he’s cobbled together himself holding books, a polished-clean skull of some critter, Essosi trinkets from Arya, and a few figurines Davos gave him before he passed after contracting the bloody flux, which spread through King’s Landing only a year and a half into their rebuilding.

(They’re all wolves and bears and stags, those figurines. No dragons.)

Jon returns to the table with another tankard he fills with wine from her cask. “I don’t have any goblets. Never really have wine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says and swallows a mouthful, eyes returning to his bed. She gave him the quilt spread out over it. Sewed it herself. A patchwork motif of the heart-tree and their whole family standing beneath its brilliant crown. A piece of home in this new life of his. “You kept the quilt.”

Jon looks over his shoulder. Looks back at her, hand wrapped around his tankard of ale. “Yeah. It’s warm.”

“Yes. I made sure of it. Didn’t want you to freeze to death up here.” She breathes out a mirthless chuckle. “And I suppose you never will.”

It won’t be the cold that kills them.

* * *

Bran only ever saw the future in glimpses so short he rarely knew whether they were in fact the future rather than the past or present. Sometimes they contradicted one another too and he couldn’t be sure until they came to pass. Then, one day, when he was honing that skill and tried seeing a decade into the future, it was like walking through a snowstorm so thick it drew a veil of white over his eyes. As if there were no one left through whose eyes he could observe time. No people, no heart-trees, no animals, no anything. So he tried again and again. There was the occasional image of things he would not share with others, but mostly there was only white. 

Alarmed, he started combing through time to understand it. That’s when he discovered the threat and sent a raven to the Citadel.

The maesters call it an asteroid.

It’s big. Bigger than Westeros. Bigger than she can imagine. And it’s headed toward them. Hurtling through whatever lies beyond the sky.

Bran has seen three futures:

Once, only once, did he see a future where the asteroid got knocked off course by another asteroid before impact. The world lives. He rules on and so does she and children play at Winterfell. Her children. A red-haired girl. Two dark-haired boys.

A few times, he’s seen a future where the asteroid shatters as it gets knocked off course. Most chunks burn until they’re consumed as they descend. But one is large enough to form a big crater at the Neck, separating the North from the rest of Westeros for true. He saw children then too, he wrote. Still a red-haired girl and two dark-haired boys, but another girl as well. A runt of the litter.

Mostly, he sees the asteroid obliterate everything. 

Jon stares at his hands for a long moment as he absorbs her words. She drinks her wine, relaxes into the warmth it spreads in her frozen body.

“How likely is it?” he rasps out.

“Very.” She nods at the scroll that now lies half-furled on the table. “That’s just one of the scrolls I got. Bran traveled to the Citadel instantly. He arrived two days ago. According to their combined calculations…” She sighs deeply. “This is our last night in this world. I found out this morning. He didn’t have time to send a courier. Instead I got… ten ravens. I brought them all, if you want to read them.”

“He saw three futures. _Three_.” The desperation in Jon’s voice is an echo of her own this morning, when all this landed in her lap and she tried bargaining with Wolkan as if he could personally change the course of the asteroid. “It might not happen.”

“I can’t stop thinking about the children,” Sansa murmurs. “It’s how I know. If Bran believed that would happen, if he truly did, he’d never tell me.”

“Why did he?”

“I don’t know. I won’t pretend I understand how his mind works anymore.”

“Maybe he wanted to give you hope.”

“I doubt it. Perhaps, in case he and the maesters are wrong after all, he wanted me to make other choices. Better choices.” She gives a tight smile. “I have no heirs. Something I’m rather happy about at the moment…” She rises to her feet and taps the tabletop with her still-gloved fingers. “I won't detain you. I’m sure you have someone you love you’d like to spend your final hours with. You can keep the wine. It’s a good year.”

The finest wine in her cellar. Saved for a special occasion. “ _Perhaps Your Grace’s wedding,_ ” her steward said once. (She almost laughs at that too.)

“And what will you do?” Jon asks. “Ride through the night and arrive at Winterfell in time for…” 

“The end? Yes. I should have an hour or two if I leave now.”

“You wasted your last day just to tell me this? You could’ve sent a raven.”

“Would you have preferred it?”

“Of course not. It’s not news you want by raven, is it.”

“No. It’s not. Believe me.” She slips back into her cloak. “We might not be brother and sister anymore, but I know you would’ve done the same for me. And it’s not as if I have a husband to snuggle up with and wait for the end.”

Jon just looks at her, eyebrows twisted with a sorrow she feels too, all too keenly in her chest. 

She fastens the direwolf clasp at her throat. “I don’t regret how I’ve spent my last hours. I got a chance to say goodbye to the North before it gets smashed to pieces."

She pulls the hood up over her head. Melted snowflakes spray from the movement and land on the floorboards.

“It was nice,” she murmurs without meeting his eyes. “Seeing it one last time.”

This is it, then.

They’ve barely done else but say goodbye to one another since they found each other again. Not that they’ve ever actually said it. They wave, they nod, they look. They hugged, once. And now, finally, they will say the words. Their first time and their last.

She takes a breath and parts her lips--

“Why didn’t Bran send me a raven, then? He wouldn’t care.”

She shakes her head, one shoulder raised. “He must’ve known I would come here.”

“Yeah,” Jon mumbles, staring into his drink. “I don’t have anyone to snuggle up with either. If you like, you can stay with me and Ghost and Old Nan. We’re not going anywhere.”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

He looks up from his tankard. “Why?”

“You’re very handsome. You’re still young. You have your own home and all your teeth. You look clean enough.”

“Aye.” He puffs out his chest. “I bathe.”

Sansa smiles despite it all. “That’s more than what can be said about most wildlings.”

“I’m a wildling now, then?”

“Half northerner, half wildling. Isn’t that what they say about the Warden of the Border?” She glances around the cabin, fingers moving back to the clasp. “You have a tub?”

“No. I go to Castle Black. No one there now but mice and ghosts. It’s rather peaceful.”

“Why don’t you live there? It would be more practical.”

She’s asked him before. Then he shrugged and said it was too big for one person. Too many rooms to clean. Now, though, he looks at her with a sad smile and tells the truth.

“Died there once. Didn’t want to die there again. Rather good decision.” He spreads out his arms. “I get to die here instead.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” She hangs the cloak on a hook on the wall next to the door. Sits on the log stool closest to the hearth. Pulls off her gloves and warms her fingers; they’re still a bit cold and stiff after the long ride. “After everything we’ve been through, after everything we did to save the world from the Night King and from dragons, this is how it ends.”

“Yeah, well…” With a too-chipper smile, he raises his tankard. “At least we made it to the end.”

She smiles a little, raising her tankard too. “To the end.”

* * *

“I wish Arya were here.” 

They’ve sat in silence for a while, nursing their drinks and their hopelessness. A despair so thorough it results in wasting the precious time they have left on staring into nothing while the fire crackles and Old Nan preens and Ghost dozes in the cozy warmth of ignorance.

Jon has seen Arya only once since he left King’s Landing. Once she realized what’s west of Westeros was the easternmost shores of Essos, she returned with knick-knacks and stories and a grumpy disappointment that made them both laugh. With ale and sour goat’s milk flowing, they stayed up until dawn just talking. One of the best days of his life, he gathers. He was so proud, then. His little sister had confirmed that the world was round. She spent weeks in Oldtown, sharing her discoveries with the maesters.

They’re writing a book about her.

“Last time I saw her, she promised to return one day with more stories…” With the book that will never grace his ugly old bookshelf. “I’ll never see her again.”

Sansa taps her fingers against the tankard. They’re bare now, the gloves lying on the table, one neatly placed atop the other. She wears a pretty jadestone ring new to him, the round gem a pale, marbled green.

“She’s on her way home.” Sansa’s voice is as empty as his tankard; he fills it with more ale. “Last time I saw her, she promised it would be her last trip to Essos for a while. That she’d come home. I got a raven from Storm’s End only a few days ago. She would board a ship to White Harbor that same day. Right now she must be passing the Crownlands.” Sansa’s fingers wrap around the tankard. “It was supposed to be a surprise. For your nameday.” Her smile is more bitter than the ale. “I was so happy. I was finally--” Sansa clears her throat and sits straighter on the log stool. “She had decided to make it her mission to get you to come home. To live with us. She suggested it was my fault you live up here. That I needed to make more of an effort. Make you feel welcome.” Her gaze is steady when it locks onto his. “Is it true?”

He brings his tankard to his lips, resting it there while he thinks before taking a sip. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know because you’ve never thought about it--or you don’t know because it’s true and you don’t want to be rude? You can just tell me the truth, Jon. The world is ending. Why bother lying anymore? If we’re spending our last hours alive together, we can just as well be honest.”

“No consequences to anything,” he says with a crooked smile.

“We can say whatever we like.”

“We still have hours to go, though. Maybe we should show some restraint.”

“You don’t want to argue? We’re good at it.”

“Are we?” He watches her for a beat, thinking back on all those times when words have become heated and their chests have heaved and their cheeks have flushed and their eyes have shone and they’ve never ever reached a compromise. “I wouldn’t say so.”

“Suppose it depends on your definition. We’re prone to it. Is that better? We’re almost on the verge of it now, aren’t we?”

“I’d rather not. Not now.”

_I don’t want to die angry._

_I don’t want to die frustrated._

_I don’t want--_

“You’re right." She calms herself with a slow breath; the shadow of a smile warms her eyes. "You are. It's not how we should spend our final hours."

“How _do_ you want to spend them?”

“Does it matter?” The tankard seems a constant in her hand. “All we can do is drink and talk. Or sit in silence, I suppose. Would you rather we be silent?”

Jon shakes his head. “We never really talk, do we. We should.”

Sansa huffs out an amused breath. “This is the night you decide to get to know me?”

“Better late than never?”

She watches him for a beat and, as that short stretch of time passes, he sees the sardonic mask slip more and more to reveal desolation. A glossy sheen shimmers in her eyes. With a trembling breath, she looks away.

“We’re going to die,” she whispers. “Just like that. I’ve never even lived, only survived, and now…”

Her voice fades and her queenly posture falls away and he knows, somehow, that the last of her strength is falling away too. He knows that if he lets her fall into darkness, she won’t be able to pull herself out and then he’ll topple over the edge too. They never touch, him and her, but he takes her hand anyway and pulls her back to the present, to him, to the rest of their lives.

It’s cooler than his, her hand. Softer. Smaller. He folds his other hand over it too, cradling it as if a scared, abandoned hatchling.

“Arya was at Storm’s End?” he asks just to get her to keep talking. “Was she visiting Gendry?”

Sansa nods, holding his hand so tightly her nails dig into his flesh. He bears it easily, happily.

“Are they…?”

She shakes her head. “He wants to. He’s still in love with her. But he’s married. Has a son. She doesn’t want to be that kind of woman. She decided to leave the same day.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Is it? I’m not sure she would’ve agreed had she known what we know. I know I wouldn’t have. I would’ve stayed there and loved him for the few days I had left. I would’ve been selfish.”

Jon glances at her ring. A gift, then. From some man who lives too far away. A man she might’ve chosen to ride too had he lived closer instead of riding to Jon. A man she’d never tell him about on a normal night.

Whenever they meet, once they’re done with work, things become strained and strange, the air in the room too thick to breathe. They move onto safer grounds every time, exchanging news about other people, always other people. All their friends who’ve scattered across Westeros and he rarely sees anymore.

Jon empties his tankard and fills it with wine. Tops off her tankard too. Drinks as he waits. It’s good, the wine. Rich. Not too bitter.

They did talk once. Properly. Some months after he escorted Tormund and his people to Hardhome. They stayed up all night in Castle Black, in the Lord Commander’s chamber. They parted at dawn, hoarse and red-eyed. Hollowed out. That chambered echoed with their shouts, with their whispers, with their accusations and admissions and apologies, for years. Still does, he gathers. He never goes in there anymore when he visits Castle Black.

(They did hug then too. It wasn’t on a windy pier he hugged her last, but they’ve never acknowledged it and in the days after he decided it had never happened. He never clung to her after pouring it all out. He never received a forgiving kiss to his temple. He never rested his head on her chest and felt her heartbeat beneath his ear, her fingers in his hair, his fingers splayed over her back. He never left that room seeped in guilt and shame over the innocent things they did.)

Now, she chews on her lip as if deliberating whether or not to talk.

He waits.

(She’s still holding his hand.)

* * *

She doesn’t think about Tamlen often. Almost never, really. The ring gleams in the light of the fire and the fat candles standing on a tray in the middle of the table. She’s still holding Jon’s hand, she realizes almost with a jolt. She lets go, leaving red crescents on his skin from where her nails dug into his hand. They have an unspoken rule that prohibits touching and she’s already broken it once tonight. She won’t break it again. Fidgets with the ring instead, resting her eyes on the fire.

She’s never regretted her choice. Not once. But an asteroid intent on killing them all changes everything, doesn’t it?

She fills her lungs with woodsmoke-scented air. “I wish,” she says on the exhale, but the rest of her confession stays somewhere deep in her chest. “I wish we had something to eat. I should’ve brought something.”

“I have food. We should eat it all.”

Sansa smiles. “We should. Gorge ourselves.”

“Corn?” Old Nan says.

“Aye, I’ll give you all the corn you want, Nan.”

He doesn’t bother putting on his cloak, just opens the door and heads outside to the larder. Sansa hears the creak of raven cages opening. The flutter of wings. The caws of freedom. She goes to the shutters and cracks them open a smidge, watches him release the horses too who just snort and look at him as if he’s mad. She had the same thought, earlier. Releasing the old workhorse. Letting him wander free. Nip at evergreens before the end. But she didn’t know, then, whether Jon would let her stay.

And perhaps the horses would only become one last meal for whatever lurks in the wood, either way. Perhaps they're better off with one another.

“A little help?” Jon calls, knocking on the door with his boot.

Sansa pulls the door open and Jon tumbles inside with his arms full. Ham, leg of lamb, dried fish, a pie, bread, oatcakes, a sack of nuts, a jar of preserves. He dumps it all on the table with a whoosh of breath except the legs of lamb, which he gives to Ghost. Then he finds wooden plates and a knife and cuts them generous slices of the ham. Breaks the bread in two and hands her one of the halves. Opens the jar of preserves and sticks a wooden knife into it. Pours more wine into their tankards while the pie gets heated up on the bottom ledge of the fireplace. Gets a bowl of corn for Old Nan.

“Corn!” she says and Sansa imagines there’s a happy note in her old woman voice.

“Aye, corn.” Jon pets her head. “Eat as much as you want.”

“Seven hells!”

Sansa and Jon look at one another--and burst out laughing at the bird, who pecks at her corn happily.

“She might have Old Nan’s voice,” Sansa says, “but she sounds like you.”

“They’re like children, those birds.” He moves the warmed pie from the hearth to the table, hand wrapped in a towel. “Pick up everything.”

“Children,” Old Nan says and Sansa sees a red-haired girl. Two dark-haired boys.

She never learned what color hair the runt of the litter had. Her stomach twists.

“That doesn’t happen to be a kidney pie, does it?” she asks with forced brightness. “With pease and onions.”

“Afraid not.” He cuts them a slice each. “Mushroom.”

She watches him dig in with his hands, sopping up the juices with torn-off pieces of bread, while she keeps hers in her lap. “You don’t offer your guest knife and fork?”

Jon looks up from his food. “Live a little, Sansa. While you have the chance. Eat with your fingers. Wipe them on your dress. Talk with your mouth full. Be messy. Go on.”

The smile he flashes her is so brilliant it stuns her, just a bit. 

Oh, she knows he’s handsome. Everyone knows it. The wildlings even call him the Pretty Crow. But every so often, when he forgets to be sullen and moody, she forgets too. Forgets to look away, forgets she shouldn’t admire the handsome lines of his face as if he were a statue carved from finest stone in the image of a hero from a song. It can be taken the wrong way when it’s a purely superficial admiration. An appreciation of beauty.

Biting her lip, she peels a strip of ham from one of her slices. Puts it in her mouth. Smiles as she chews for Jon looks ridiculously pleased to see her remove her lady’s armor for a moment. When she scoops up pie with her fingers too, he properly beams. A pleasant buzz of wine simmers in her body and takes the edge off the looming threat. He’s a bit drunk too, she can tell. He always smiles more easily when he’s had a few ales.

“Did you make this pie?” She licks her fingers clean. “It’s good.”

“No. The breweress in Mole’s Town is sweet on me.”

“Oh? Is she pretty? Have you finally found a girl.”

“She’s at least sixty years old, Sansa.”

“Age is but a number.”

“A very big number.”

“Is she the only one who’s sweet on you? Is that why you don’t have someone? You never answered me.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because it puzzles me. Why does this handsome man--who _bathes_ \--not have a love? The spearwives must throw themselves at your feet. Is it _because_ you bathe? Is that it? Perhaps they don’t like their men smelling of soap.” She arches a brow. “They certainly don’t like smelling of it themselves.”

That earns her a smile. “That’s not how they do things. If I like a wildling woman, I have to steal her. And I’m not here to steal anyone.”

“Are you too honorable?”

His smile grows. “Nah.”

“Then why?”

“You know why.”

Three years ago, after Jon had been pardoned, after he’d become the intermediary between the North and the Free Folk and moved to this cabin, a lesser lord with too many daughters asked the Queen whether her cousin didn’t need a wife. One who wouldn’t complain about living in a cabin. One who was used to doing at least some chores for they had only two maids, one driver, and one cook, and who would be willing to learn even more. She’d come with a small dowry too, and child-bearing hips (which Lord Hart pointed out thrice).

Jon wouldn’t even meet her. “ _My bloodline ends with me_ ,” was all he said in his most firm tone when Sansa rode all the way up here to share the offer with him.

But that was years ago and things change. Opinions change. Feelings change.

“Aye,” he says after she tells him so, “but that hasn’t. I’m more surprised you’ve remained unwed. Wasn’t there someone? Some lord chasing after you.”

“You’ll have to be more specific. Many lords have tried courting me.”

“He had golden hair and blue eyes. Tall. Pretty as a girl.”

“Lord Ashford? I didn’t like him. A man needs to be more than good-looking.”

“Aye.” Jon scratches his neck with casual quirk of his mouth. “He needs to bathe too.”

Sansa smiles. “You’re unreasonably proud of that fact, Jon.”

“I ride for an hour just to bathe. I lug buckets of water to the cauldron. Chop wood to heat it up. Scrub the tub. Lug the water to the tub. Pour it in. Do you know how many buckets of water you need to fill a tub? It’s a lot of work! I don’t have servants, Sansa.”

“You could have. If you came ho--” She chokes on that word, the full force of Bran’s ravens hitting her anew like a gauntleted fist to her stomach. “Oh, I forgot,” she whispers. “I forgot. How could I forget?”

Her eyes sting with tears. Jon’s hand closes around hers again and she clings to the warmth of his skin against hers, clings to the warmth of his gaze when he leans over the table to look deeply into her eyes. 

“If we live,” he says, voice husky with conviction, “if Bran’s wrong, I’ll come home.”

“You’ll come home?” she whispers, hopeful like a little girl.

“I’ll come home. It’s time we live together, you and me and Arya. And then we could get to know one another."

“I’d like that.”

He brushes his thumb over her knuckles and that small gesture is everything. A tenderness she’s been so starved of the past few years, she’d forgotten how sweet it is to be cherished as Sansa rather than the Key to the North or her mother’s image or even the Queen.

She lays her other hand over his just to keep him there a little while longer.

(He doesn’t pull away.)

“We’re already getting a headstart,” she says with a wobbly smile.

“We are.” He nods, smiling too, just as wobbly. “Tell me something else. Something that’s not about work or Arya or Sam. Something about you. Something _happy_.”

A tinge of desperation is back in his voice. A desperation for some joy to hold onto before the end, but when Sansa racks her brain for something, anything, she finds nothing but work. Subjects to protect. Petitions to fill her tedious mornings. Meetings to fill her tedious afternoons. Proposals to reject. Lords and ladies kept at a distance so that no one would come too close. So that no one could hurt her or leave her ever again.

“I don’t have anything. Nothing but regrets. A lifetime of them. It’s made me so terrified of making more mistakes, I’ve not done _anything_ and now I’ll die with even more regrets. If only I could go back, there are so many things I would change, Jon. So many things.”

“Like what?”

“Everything,” she says with a wet laugh. “I’d change _everything_.”

* * *

A tear has escaped her lashes. It slides down her cheek. Her ring reflects the light of the hearth when she lifts her hand to wipe away the tear.

There’s a knot in his chest, full of longing for something he can’t put into words. Not even in his own mind. He only knows that he aches.

“It’s silly,” she murmurs. “It’s nothing. Or it wasn’t, at least.”

She blinks slowly. Another tear falls. (The knot in his chest tightens.)

“It feels monumental now. It was my last chance at happiness. If only for a moment. I can’t bring back people we’ve lost. I can’t undo any of my many mistakes, but I could’ve done that. I was too afraid to be selfish. Told myself I’d regret it.”

She exhales, shaking her head, and tells him of one dreary winter morning earlier this year when a stranger came to Winterfell. A tall, dark, noble man wrapped in the finest winter cloak she’d ever seen. His name was Tamlen Maegyr and he wanted to know the family of which his sister was a part for a little while. Sansa showed him around Winterfell, showed him where Robb grew up, showed him a tapestry of the King in the North and his direwolf Grey Wind. She told him stories and learned stories in return. Got to know the good-sister she never had the pleasure of meeting through the eyes of her adoring little brother.

“He stayed for two weeks. I won’t say we fell in love. We didn’t. But there was _something_. A shared grief, perhaps. His parents had died. He was the head of his House now, just like me. But he wasn’t alone. He had a wife. A match arranged by his mother and father before they passed. A loveless marriage, he claimed. His wife was traditional and conservative, even cruel sometimes, while he had spent most of his life broadening his horizons. I have no way of knowing whether that was true. It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to be that kind of woman either way. I didn’t want to make another mistake."

“That ring. He gave you that?”

“It was Talisa’s, once. He wanted my family to have something of her. Something to remember her by. Something to pass down to--”

Sansa’s voice breaks. It takes her several breaths to gather herself, her chest jumping with each inhale.

(He keeps brushing his thumb over her knuckles, soothing, comforting.)

“I don’t wear it for Tamlen. I wear it for Robb. Ramsay burned all his belongings in front of me one day. Just to make me cry. This is the closest thing I have. I wear it to remind myself to be careful. To not trust so easily. To never forget how fleeting happiness is. So fleeting it’s not worth the trouble.”

She tugs it off her finger and lays it down on the table. 

(Her hands return to her lap.)

“I’m so stupid. It _is_ fleeting--and that’s why I should’ve done my best to find it. So I wouldn’t die completely miserable. So I’d had at least one happy memory that isn’t so old it’s faded. I wish I’d at least kissed him. I can’t believe I’m going to die without ever having been kissed.”

“Never?”

“Never willingly,” she murmurs. “Joffrey. Littlefinger. Ramsay. Tyrion, once.”

Jon clenches his jaw. “When?” 

“Bran’s coronation feast. He was very drunk. Told me he didn’t have divided loyalties anymore, that we could rekindle things. There was never anything to rekindle. I tried telling him so, politely, but he was obtuse--or maybe he didn’t care. Men rarely do. He managed to press his lips to mine before I pushed him away. He nearly fell off his chair.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

Sansa smiles at him. “I think the asteroid will get to him before you do, no matter how quickly you ride."

“You shouldn’t sit here with me. You should’ve picked some good looking lad and taken him to your bed. I would’ve had my ale and done my work and gone to bed and died in my sleep, none the wiser.”

“None the wiser,” Old Nan says.

“See?” He nods at the bird.”Even she agrees.”

“Maybe you’re right. It was selfish of me to come here. You could’ve died in your sleep and instead I’ve--”

“No. Don’t do that. I would’ve wanted to know. I just…” He lifts his shoulders helplessly. “There’s still time, isn’t there? If you ride quickly. There could be. Maybe it’s worth the try. Better than wasting time here with me.”

“It’s not a waste of time,” she says, quietly. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself. All my life, I’ve dreamed about finding the man of my dreams. I’ve dreamed of kisses. Of tenderness. Love.” Her face falls, then. Even in this scant light can he see the faint blue lines of her veins beneath her pale skin. “I’ll never experience it and it breaks my heart a little bit.”

She laughs, then. Rolls her eyes at herself when she wipes away the tears glittering on the apples of her cheeks.

“There’s still time, Sansa. You could get an hour."

“No,” she says, a wrinkle between her brows. “It would be strange, wouldn’t it? Bedding your subjects. I’d just keep wondering: is he in my bed because he wants to be or because he felt he couldn’t say no?”

“Yeah.” Jon looks glumly into his ale.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t--”

“It’s all right.” He drinks greedily, lets the ale wash away unwanted memories. Exhales when he puts the tankard back down and rolls up his sleeves. “I’ll do it, then.” He rubs his hands together before slapping the table. “Come on, Sansa. Get your kit off. Let’s get into bed. I’ll show you a good time.”

She laughs, truly laughs, laughs in a way he hasn’t seen her since she was a little girl and everything was right in the world and her giggles echoed through Winterfell every day.

“Get your kit off,” Old Nan says and Sansa laughs even more.

He’s always found her beautiful--anyone with eyes to see with finds her beautiful. She’s beautiful when she smiles, when she cries, when she fumes with anger. She’s beautiful when she sews, when she rules, when she looks down her nose at him. She’s beautiful whatever her mood, whatever she does. But when she laughs, she’s radiant. When she laughs everything does feel right in the world and it’s easy to forget that it’s ending.

It’s easy to just sit there and admire the way her smile curves her cheeks and her lips. How red the wine has left them. How warm her eyes become when they’re so often the coolest shade of blue whenever they fall upon him.

“Jon!”

He inhales, blinking. “What?”

“Where did you go?”

He just shakes his head with a stupid smile on his face. “I think I’m getting a bit in my cups.”

“Are you sure? You’re not just trying to avoid the question, are you?”

“What question?”

Sansa chuckles. “How drunk are you? I asked about your regrets.”

“Ah.” He rubs at his jaw. “Yeah, I have some of those. More than some, really. But I don’t know why I should talk about it now. I liked it better when we were laughing.”

“This is your chance, Jon. Share your regrets with me. Your dreams. Anything. There’s no point in being embarrassed anymore.”

“No, there isn’t, is there.” He fortifies himself with a mouthful of wine. “All right. Ever since I was a boy, I’ve wanted only one thing: to become lord of Winterfell and marry a beautiful lady.”

“Really?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, sullen. 

“I wasn’t judging you. I was surprised, that’s all. Go on.” She gestures at him with her tankard. “Tell me about your dream.”

“Well, I wanted to be a Stark. A proper Stark. Someone good enough for some fancy lord to want for his favorite daughter. I dreamed about a wedding in the godswood a dark winter night. Lanterns hung in the trees. Snowflakes in her long hair.”

He doesn't look at Sansa’s hair and the way it tumbles down her shoulders in glossy copper waves.

“She’d be pretty,” he says, eyes downcast. “Pretty and kind and gentle. And she’d love me.” 

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugs, drinks his ale. “I should’ve married that girl after all. Lord Hart’s daughter. I hear she has child-bearing hips.”

“She does.” A teasing smile curves Sansa’s lips. “There’s still time. She lives two hours from the Wall. If you ride quickly, you’d have time to wed her, bed her, and die a happy married man with your wife in your arms.”

“And leave you here all alone? What kind of man do you take me for.” He shakes his head, swallows down more wine. “Targaryen madness… I let that stop me. I really am a fool. A bleeding idiot. I could’ve had a wife. A child or two.”

“It’s different, isn’t it. When it was my choice, I was fine with it. Lonely, yes, but fine. But now that some stupid skyrock takes my choices away from me… I’m so angry with myself.”

“Aye. It’s different. I do wish I’d gotten married. I wish I’d had one relationship without deceit and betrayal and death.”

“I’ll marry you.” Sansa gives an adorable nod. “Come on, Jon. Grab your cloak. There’s a heart-tree in Whitetree. I’ll be your wife for a few hours before we all suffer an agonizing death.”

He ducks his head, grinning from ear to ear. “You think it’ll be agonizing?” he asks, looking back up at her, still smiling.

She’s smiling too. That teasing smile with mirth dancing in her eyes and it does something funny to his stomach and-- He should look away, has looked into her eyes for far too long. This isn’t what they are. This can’t ever be what they are.

Jon clears his throat and looks down into his tankard as if a solution waits at the bottom. 

Sansa’s skirts rustle as she stands. Her boots click against the floorboards. The shutters groan when she opens them, the candle flames fluttering in the draft.

“It doesn’t look different, the sky,” she says. “But one of those stars…”

Jon takes another mouthful of ale and leaves the table too. Stands beside her in the cold winter air. He imagines she leans into him the smallest bit. That she steals some of his warmth. No, not imagines. She _is_. She’s moving closer as if she can’t help but seek out a touch of warmth, a touch of comfort (a touch of him). He’s struck with the impulse to put his arm around her. To grip her hip and rest his arm at the small of her back. To burrow his nose into her hair and breathe in that lovely scent of lavender and roses--and this is where he pulls away, usually. Always, when he gets too close he pulls away as he should, but tonight he stays right there and looks at her looking at the sky.

_No consequences._

“None of Bran’s ravens said what it’s like,” she murmurs. “Perhaps he doesn’t know. I hope it’s instant, though. That one moment we are here and the next… gone.”

Jon's not aware of acting on his impulse after all until he feels the sharp angle of her hip bone cradled in his palm. He stiffens. Holds his breath. Waits for her to push him away or even slap him, but she just leans into him even more and for a moment they just stand there, watching the star-strewn sky that twinkles so happily. It doesn’t know it harbors doom. It doesn’t know that, tomorrow, it’ll shine down on an empty, broken world.

A whisper of wings behind him. Old Nan’s talons dig into his shoulder. “Whitetree,” she says. “Marry. Corn. Seven hells!”

Jon turns to Sansa to laugh with her, but she’s still staring out the window, dreamy, wistful.

“Maybe we should get married,” she says, voice as faraway as her gaze.

His mouth hangs open. He closes it. Swallows.

Furrow-browed, she turns to look at him. “We should. Ghost can be our witness. I’ll give you your wedding, if you give me my kiss.”

Jon’s arm falls away. He takes a step back. Regards her with his head tipped back. She looks neither serious nor teasing and he can’t make sense of it at all.

“Are you serious?”

“I am. If you can stomach kissing me.”

“Can _you_ stomach kissing _me?_ ”

“I already told you you’re very handsome. And you bathe. I’d be greedy to demand more than that.” Her eyes drop to his mouth for barely a heartbeat before she looks out the window again. “But I want a proper kiss. Arya says when it’s proper, you feel deep in your belly. In a good way.” Sansa presses a pale hand to her stomach. “It sounds wonderful. I want that.”

“That’s quite the demand from someone who’s not offering a proper wedding.”

She looks back at him, bemused. “What’s not proper about it? If it's the lack of guests, I can't do much about that."

“No, there’s no…” Jon’s chin dips low, his cheeks a bit warm. “I am not drunk enough for this.”

Shaking his head, he turns around and returns to the table. Holds onto the tankard as if his hands will act on more impulses unless he keeps them full.

“Not drunk enough for what?” she says, closing the shutters.

It’s been so long since he… And she is beautiful, gorgeous really. Smells pretty and soft and delicate. The world is ending and they’re both desperate and a little bit drunk and all they have is each other. That’s why his thoughts are nosing at impossible, deplorable places.

Sansa walks a step closer. “What, you’re not drunk enough to wed me _and_ bed me, is that what you’re hinting at?”

“No. I wasn’t drunk enough to _suggest_ it.”

“Oh, so you _are_ drunk enough to bed me?”

His eyes widen, cheeks so blazingly hot he can feel his skin burn.

She angles her head, the light playing along the column of her neck. When she licks her lips, she does so slowly, sensually. He glares at her. It only makes her smile. It only makes her more gorgeous.

“Did you mean it? When you offered to show me a good time.”

“It was a joke, Sansa.”

“Sometimes we present a wish as a joke so we can laugh it off if we’re rejected.”

He breathes out a laugh, looking away. “Does that mean you meant it when you offered to marry me the first time?”

“I just asked you again, didn’t I? I thought that was obvious.”

“And what if the world doesn’t end?” He looks at her properly, chin held high. “Then what, Sansa?”

“It will. We both know it. And this way we could die with fewer regrets. We could die with some wishes fulfilled.” She sits down on the stool next to him. He’s breathing too quickly, his heart beats too quickly, his wit isn’t quick enough. “I’m not suggesting we’re intimate, Jon. I don’t even need that kiss. I wouldn’t want to unless you do. But I will marry you, if you want. It would be my honor to cloak you. To make you a proper Stark.”

“It would?”

She takes his hand, cradles it in both of hers and he waits for her to laugh. To point at the stupid bastard believing for even a moment that the beautiful lady Sansa would ever want to marry someone like him. But she doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t laugh at all.

“Jon Snow,” she says, eyes all too blue, “will you be my husband? For the rest of our very short lives.”

  
  


* * *

They light all the torches and lanterns he owns and carry them the short distance to Whitetree. The few houses sitting below the mighty weirwood have crumbled beneath the weight of its shadow. A white fox scampers away when they arrive, leaving them seemingly alone in a silence only disrupted by the softest wind stirring the blood-red leaves. As they start hanging up the lanterns on low branches and shove the torches into the snow, however, ravens swoop down from the sky and perch in the tree like a hundred black leaves. Old Nan joins them, watching them with dark eyes and a quiet beak. As does Ghost, who takes his place at the pale bole, his red-eyed face a twin to the face carved into the bark.

Jon’s warm hand finds hers. “Do you still want your kiss?” he asks without taking his eyes off the tree.

“Only if you want it.”

“All right.” He shifts so that he faces her, his skin golden in the torchlight. “So how are we doing this?”

“You don’t know the words?”

“I know the words,” he says, blinking softly. “Are we throwing ourselves into this a bit drunk and giggling because the world is ending or…”

“Or are we pretending it’s real?”

“Aye,” he says so quietly she sees it more than she hears it.

“I wouldn’t mind pretending,” she whispers. “I wouldn’t mind pretending that the world isn’t ending. That we’re just in love--wildly and madly in love--and that we have stolen away in the night so we can be together. I wouldn’t mind at all.” 

He hasn’t cried once since she came to his doorstep and told him the worst news of their lives. But now his eyes well up and a tremor moves through his pressed together lips. She takes his other hand and pulls him closer closer closer and he sinks into her, rests his forehead against her forehead, shares her breaths for a while as if to gather himself. Finally, with a quick kiss to her brow, he pulls away and takes his place next to Ghost.

She runs her fingers through her hair, shakes out her skirts, adjusts the cloak. “How do I look?”

"No one has ever been more beautiful."

She doesn’t care at all that it’s just pretend. In that moment, he’s so terribly easy to believe if she lets herself and she does. Beaming through her tears, she strides forward and says the vows she’s only ever said before against her will. This time, finally, she means them. That thought warms her from within. She doesn’t even shudder when she removes her cloak and drapes it around his shoulders. The direwolf clasps click when she fastens them. Breathless, she steps back to admire him. A proper Stark, at last. 

“How do you feel, Jon Stark?” she whispers, blinking away her tears.

His only reply is the earnestness in his gaze when he closes the distance between them, cups her cheek, and leans in.

It’s dry and soft at first. Like a feather ghosting over her lips. It’s almost disappointing. She still smiles when he pulls back a touch. It’s better than nothing. Her first kiss. The others don’t count. This is good enough.

But then Jon angles his head and leans back in and parts his lips and she parts hers too--and now she understands. Now she feels it deep in her belly. A whirlwind, a surging wave. Something as powerful and constant and wild as nature. 

She always thought a kiss--just one kiss--would be enough for her. That it would sate her curiosity. But now she learns that the more Jon kisses her, the hungrier she becomes--and his hunger matches hers. With his tunic fisted in her hands, with his fingers digging into her back, with the rasp of his beard against her skin, she doesn’t learn what it’s like to be kissed tenderly and lovingly at all. She learns what it's like to be kissed with such desperate passion her knees buckle and something in her core grows hot.

When he pulls away for air, she follows him, wants more, wants heat, wants him. He wants her too--or at least his body does. And that’s a first too. The first time she’s felt a man hard against her and _wanted_. 

“Jon,” she whispers against his lips, “when I said we didn’t need to be intimate…”

He breathes out a chuckle, takes her hand, and runs.

* * *

  
  


He knows this is wrong, knows this is the one thing he never should’ve allowed himself, knows that had something existed after death, the people they’ve lost would’ve looked down at them with disdain. But when they tumble through the door to his cabin and Sansa’s lips are on his in an instant, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but getting out of these clothes and finding velvet-soft skin against his fingers. They stumble over discarded boots and kicks away cloaks trying to ensnare their feet and fumble with laces to bodices and shirts with feverish fingers and breaths that tremble with need.

But then the hands tugging his shirt from his breeches stop.

Sansa doesn’t pull away, though. She’s still so close their noses touch.

“Slow down.” She strokes her hands up his chest to cradle his cheeks. “Can it be beautiful? It’s our wedding night. The world isn’t ending and we are not desperate to feel alive. You and I are in love. For tonight, for a few hours, we’re in love.”

“Aye. We’re in love.” He winds his arms around her and nuzzles her nose. “We have all the time in the world.”

  
  


* * *

He unwraps her with reverence, worships what he exposes. Her skin sings beneath his lips, her body quivers beneath his touch, and when he kisses her in a place that has never known tenderness, she falls and falls and falls into a blissful oblivion where nothing exists but his mouth and his hands and his hair so silk-soft between her fingers.

Spent, she sags into bed. Cool sheets against her back. Pleased hums in the silence. A warm husband moving up her body. She welcomes him with open arms, kisses him lazily when he slides in deep and starts to move with a push and pull so sweet she thinks she might fall again. She just needs to wind her arms around him and envelope him in every way, make him hers for the briefest moment in time.

They share a three word lie, then, with trembling voices and lips all too eager to return to kissing _._

Neither lasts long after that.

With a grunt, he collapses atop her, his face tucked into the crook of her neck. Trailing her fingers over his sweat-slick back as they float down from their high together, she almost wants to lie again. The words are there on her tongue, eager to be spilled anew, but she keeps them to herself.

* * *

She’s pretty no matter what she does, his wife. Gorgeous, really. He once believed she was at her most beautiful when she laughed, but now he learns he was wrong.

Sansa Stark is at her most beautiful when she’s naked in his bed, with her skin still dewy and rosy from his touch, with her lips swollen and pink from his kisses, with her eyes hooded from an intimacy she's only ever shared with him.

They’re on their sides, facing one another beneath the quilt she sewed him. Resting in an afterglow that should leave him shamed and full of regret, but his heart is brimming with a new kind of contentment, the knot entirely gone.

“Was it what you hoped it would be?” he asks.

“Better,” she murmurs, looking at him through her lashes, and he knows he's beaming again. “You’re a good actor. It was very convincing.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

“It wasn’t… unpleasant for you? Or strange.”

“No.”

Her eyes flit between his. “I didn’t think you’d want this. You didn’t sound… Before. Before we…”

He understands, then. She’s been taken against her will. She didn’t want to bed a subject for fear of doing the same to someone else. She’s known for a few years, now, that the Dragon Queen took away his choices the day she took his ships and made him her prisoner.

“We might be pretending," Jon says, "but we’re not deceiving each other. This is the most honest night I’ve ever spent with a woman. It was…” His chest moves with a big breath; all he can do is shake his head for he has no words to describe just how good it was. “It was no chore, Sansa. Believe me.”

“So you weren’t just indulging me? Fulfilling my dying wish."

A breathy laugh leaves him; he looks away. “I’d never admit this if the world wasn’t ending but…”

“Go on,” she says, a smile in her voice.

“I think you’re gorgeous.” He looks back at her, _gazes_ at her. “Properly gorgeous. Can’t take my eyes off you gorgeous.”

“You do?” She blushes. “Gorgeous enough to bed even if you were sober?”

“Aye.”

“Gorgeous enough to bed even if the world wasn’t ending?”

Jon leans back with a hum, eyes narrowed. “Not so sure about that one.”

Sansa laughs. “Then lucky me it's the end of the world.”

Her words land, knock reality back into them. Their shared joy fades into a silence full of sorrow he can't allow to linger.

He cups her cheek and brushes his thumb over her trembling bottom lip. “I'd like to kiss you again,” he murmurs. "Can I kiss you again?"

“Jon,” she whispers, tear-filled, and presses her lips to his.

* * *

In the little time they have left, they do finally get to know one another--at least in one way. They explore and pleasure and kiss and caress until the hunger that seemed insatiable some hours ago finally is sated and their bodies are so lax he can't quite tell where he ends and she begins.

He will die with her taste on his tongue.

(It’s a small comfort but a comfort all the same.)

“I’m a bad queen,” she murmurs, caressing his chest absentmindedly. “I should’ve been with my people. But I… I didn’t just come here to tell you the news. I was hoping you’d ask me to stay. I have no one, Jon. Not a single person at Winterfell sees _Sansa_ when they look at me. They just see their queen. I didn’t want to spend my last day alive as Your Grace. I wanted to be Sansa.”

“I’m glad you came,” he says, holding her closer still. “I’m glad we’ve had some joy before this shit existence ends.”

“It really has been shit, hasn’t it.”

“What if--” he starts, but scratches on the door interrupts him and he leaves the bed.

Ghost and Old Nan bring with them a gust of winter air. The starry night sky behind them is the faintest bit paler. The sun is on its way. But it’ll never again rise above Westeros as they know it.

When Jon returns to bed, Sansa snuggles into his arms with a little shiver and tucks the warm quilt around them. She already feels right there, in his arms, as if she is his wife for true.

Ghost leaps up to join them, stretched out over their feet; Old Nan perches on his head and closes her eyes, content. They form a strange little family.

“What if the world doesn’t end?” Jon says for now the end is near and it doesn’t matter anymore. “What if we fall asleep, just like this, and wake up tomorrow and the world is still here? What then?”

She’s quiet for a while, stroking her fingers along the scars scattered over his chest and stomach. “If you would like to stay married, I think we could make it work. And, if you don’t…”

“I think I might.”

“Maybe those children Bran saw were…”

The sentence ends in an indiscernible mumble, followed by a silence that lasts a beat too long. She’s slipping away, again. Falling into hopelessness. Falling away before the end. Leaving him alone. Without her. The knot in his chest returns, tightening so hard he can scarcely breathe.

“It’s just a trick.” His voice is a feverish whisper. “Sansa?” He cups her cheeks and tilts her face to his. Her eyes are glassy, unfocused, dull. “It’s just a trick. Bran’s trick. To make sure you get an heir. There’s no asteroid. The world isn’t ending--”

“It’s just a trick?” She blinks slowly, her eyes focusing on him.

“Just a trick.”

“A cruel trick.”

“Aye, but it’s so much better than the alternative.”

Her lips curve in the faintest smile. “It’s just a trick. Because he knew I’d never invite anyone into my bed.”

“You still haven’t. I invited you to mine. My wife.”

“This is our wedding night.”

“The world isn’t ending. We just made a babe. Your heir. Tomorrow we will ride back to Winterfell, together.”

“And we will be happy?”

“So happy.”

He brings her lips to his, pours everything he has into that kiss. He kisses her and kisses her and kisses her while the fire burns down low.

It’ll die soon, the fire, leaving them cold. 

There’s no point in feeding it.

* * *

She thinks about the children.

A red haired girl, red-haired like her.

Two dark-haired boys, dark-haired like their father.

She rests her head on her husband’s chest and closes her eyes and sees little boys with his hair, his eyes, his smile.

It can’t be long left now. This is their last night in this world and the night is ending.

"Thank you," she whispers, lifting her head to look at him. "Thank you for this."

"Sansa." His brow twitches; his eyes shine with tears. He cradles her cheek so, so tenderly. "I love you."

She turns her head and kisses his palm. "I love you."

She thinks they mean it this time.

She thinks maybe they meant it all along. 

Maybe that’s why they never talked about anything real. Why they never let an argument run its course. Why they’ve always made sure to keep desks and tables and people between them. Why they’ve been so careful not to touch, because somewhere deep inside they knew something would give and they’d end up just like this. Naked and bared in each other’s arms--and that thought was once more terrifying than anything.

It seems so insignificant now, that fear.

Pale light sneaks through the gaps of the shutters, through the gap between the door and the floor. It could be dawn. It could. If this were a song, it would be dawn. It would be the promise of a new day where they could be together. Safe. Happy. Alive. Where the vows they made meant something after all and a life just took root in her belly. Where, a decade from now, four children will play in the godswood of Winterfell. A red-haired girl. Two dark-haired boys. A runt of the litter. But life isn’t a song and the light isn’t dawn but the heat of an asteroid burning through the heaven on its way to collapse the world.

She could find out, she supposes. She could leave her husband’s arms and open the door and find out. But she already knows.

She finds his lips again and waits for the end.


End file.
